I’m going to say this right up front: I read Us Weekly sometimes.
I try to let people know this shortly after we meet, so they don’t get some sort of inaccurate idea about what sort of person I am. I have a policy about setting the bar low for myself, so that there is an opportunity for people to be pleasantly surprised down the line when they find out that I really am relatively smart, I don’t own a TV, and I vote.
But just because I like to read, and I can string two sentences together, does not mean that I spend my spare time catching up on back copies of The New Yorker. I think The New Yorker is just about the most boring publication in the known universe (except that recent article about Scientology that was o-mazing). Maybe you have to be from New York, I don’t know, I don’t get it.
Unlike a certain ex-bf of mine who liked to pile issues of The Economist by the bed without ever actually cracking them (not sure if he could read, to be honest, but he did like to watch conspiracy videos ad nauseam — a story for another time), I think that reading magazines is mainly something one does to relax. I can’t think of a better way to veg out than to spend an hour flipping through what is basically a picture book of inane celebrity footage.
Of course I don’t actually believe anything I read in Us Weekly! Of course I don’t!
My favorite section in Us Weekly is “Stars, They’re Just Like Us”. This is where they feature pictures of celebrities merely going about their business on a daily, while getting sabotaged by paparazzi at the most pedestrian and embarrassing moments. “Kate Hudson… pumps her own gas”. It’s so silly it’s fascinating.
So there it is. I read Us Weekly, it’s true… and I love it. And I am not ashamed. Well, maybe just a little bit ashamed.
But you know what I’ve noticed about Us Weekly? My friends who condescend to me for reading it are always the first ones to abscond with it and curl up with it when they are at my house. I’m just the one brave enough to buy it.
